That’s more like it, Rangers. This victory means that if we beat Huddersfield next weekend we’ll leapfrog them and escape the relegation zone. Typical QPR – just when you’ve written the club off for the season, the players do just enough to keep hope alive.
This game began with a bad omen, and I’m not talking about the number of police officers fanning out along the streets of Shepherd’s Bush, anticipating trouble. Paul Smyth, who was listed as being in the starting line-up, was replaced at the last-minute by Chris Willock, having felt a twinge during the warm-up. Not ideal, given that Smyth was our best player in the game against Watford.
That meant we lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows: Asmir Begović in goal; Reggie Cannon, Steve Cook, Jake Clarke-Salter and Kenneth Paal at the back; Sam Field and Jack Colback in midfield; Willock, Lyndon Dykes and Ilias Chair up front; and Sinclair Armstrong as the tip of the spear. I would have been happier with Smyth on the right instead of Willock, but at least both Cook and Colback were fit.
Having been beaten 2-0 by Millwall on Boxing Day, we didn’t seem particularly confident for the first quarter of an hour, with plenty of unforced errors. A series of defensive mistakes led to a corner for the visitors in the 16th minute, which was alarming, given how poor we are at defending from set pieces. But Martí Cifuentes seems to have addressed this weakness and we managed to clear it without too much difficulty.
We gradually settled into the game and got the first goal in the 27th minute. It began with a lovely bit of skill from Lyndon Dykes, who managed to beat his marker with a bit of keepie uppie, and then spray it out to Willock on the right. Chris then got the better of a Millwall defender and crossed it to Chair on the far post who managed to volley it across the goalkeeper and into the back of the net. It was great to see Illy and Willy combining again to get a goal.
We then started playing with a lot more confidence, creating some lovely fluid moves that could have netted us more goals before the break. Willock got a shot off in the 35th minute and Lyndon tried to curl one in a minute later that was just wide. By the time the whistle went, we’d had six shots to their one and our xG was 0.46 to their 0.16.
After the break, the Lions went up a gear, but never really looked like breaking us down, thanks to lots of hard tackling, particularly from Colback and Field. One stat that’s really improved under Cifuentes is the likelihood of our opponents scoring from open play, something that Andrew Scherer highlighted in a data-driven piece in Loft For Words last week. That stat is known as xGA and, according to Scherer, since Ainsworth’s departure we’ve only allowed an average of 0.80 xGA per game, which is less than half our xGA per game under Wild Thing (and below the league average of 1.29 xGA/game). That was really noticeable in the game against Watford, with the Hornets only having two shots on target, and it was also apparent today, with the visitors only managing to hit the target once.
Of course, tightening your defence isn’t enough to win games – you also need to create chances and convert them, something we failed to do last Sunday. But today, thankfully, was different.
The closest the visitors came to scoring was in the 70th minute, when a shot from Billy Mitchell took a deflection, beat Begović and would have bounced in were it not for a goal line clearance from Reggie Cannon.
There wasn’t much to separate the two teams in the second half and I was terrified Millwall would get an equaliser as the minutes ticked down, particularly after Willock was replaced by Albert Adomah in the 84th minute. But shortly after that, Chair advanced down the left-hand channel, then cut it back for Colback, who unleashed a decent shot that needed saving. Matija Sarkic, the Lions’ keeper, got down to his right to stop it, but it then fell invitingly in front of goal on his other side and Armstrong, who’d been a threat all afternoon, got to it first, poking it in the back of the net. Pandemonium then ensued.
After that, it was just a question of managing the rest of the game as the clock ran down, including five minutes of added time. The substitutions were later than usual, possibly because neither Smyth nor Dozzell, who’s been loaned to Birmingham for the rest of the season, were available. The last two were Elija Dixon-Bonner for Armstrong in the 89th minute and Ziyad Larkeche for Chair in the 94th.
There were lots of positives to take from this game, not least the fact that we chalked up another clean sheet. As Hoops & Dreams pointed out, QPR has managed to keep six clean sheets under Cifuentes, whereas before his appointment we’d only kept six clean sheets in the previous 40 games. It was also good to see Chair get his third for the season and Armstrong his second. Indeed, the Irish international has scored in two of our three last games. Cifuentes’ decision to promote him to the starting line-up is paying off.
Most importantly, it was a vital three points, which puts us within touching distance of escaping the relegation zone. Next weekend’s game against Huddersfield, which has been moved to 1.30pm on Sunday at the behest of Sky Sports, is the definition of a six-pointer. The Terriers’ away record is poor, whereas we seem to be steadily improving at home, so fingers’ crossed. I wouldn’t miss that one for the world.
You can watch the highlights on Sky here.